


Open Doors

by roguewriter



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, brief mention of death but nothing graphic, mostly - Freeform, she is determined to keep it shut, so little in fact the tag might not be needed, the bond is acting up but not in the way Rey expected
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 23:48:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13868598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roguewriter/pseuds/roguewriter
Summary: Rey has been haunted by doors since that day she closed the door on him.This is a short piece inspired by something the lovely podcasters on Knights of Rant/Who Talks First, mentioned in one of their TLJ podcasts. (Give them a listen, you won't regret it)





	Open Doors

**Author's Note:**

> Like I said this story was inspired by something knights of Rant/who talks first discussed in one of their podcasts. The idea stuck with me and I just had to write something down. I hope you like it!

Doors seemed to haunt her ever since that day. She prayed to the force that she would stop expecting him to be waiting on the other side. Someday’s it was a hopeful expectancy, one that meant he would greet her with kind eyes and another outstretched hand this time only promising himself and not the galaxy. Someday’s she feared that the door would open to cold unfeeling eyes, weapon at the ready to end her with a painful blow. 

She hated the part of her begged for his presence, the one that greeted her that night in the hut. The moment when she felt the most alone, the night she felt the dull ache of abandonment rear its ugly head and swallowed her into a pit worse than the one on the island. The loneliness that consumed her that night was changed by him. His patient expression, his unwavering attention; when they met and she offered him her hand without hesitation, that was when he forever changed in her eyes. 

She hated even more that her mind had started playing tricks on her. When the doors started speaking her name the way he did, or when she could feel his presence weighing   
down on them. 

It wasn’t real she repeated to herself one night, when she was awake staring at the harsh metal barrier. Only the soft glow of different switches and buttons illuminated her space, providing just enough light in her small room to make out her hand and a faint shadow of her side table. 

Tonight his presence weighted heavy on the door, this isn’t how this works she urged herself to believe. He comes into my space and I go into his, this is not how it works. Yet over the months since that moment this has happened to often to be sheer coincidence. Hearing his voice whisper her name, or hearing a noise that could only be described as a sob. 

She had gotten quite good at ignoring it when with Finn, Rose, Poe, and other resistance members. A chill would pull her away for a brief moment, then with the nagging thought in the back of her mind she would force her attention away. But in the quiet darkness of her room the feeling consumed her. She would wonder if opening the door and wanting to connect would be enough to bring him face to face with her. She wanted to, she truly wanted to see him again, but the sting of his choice sent that wish to a place her mind she dared not entertain. He rejected her… well she rejected him, but he didn’t understand. He was too consumed with killing the world that wronged him that he hadn’t realised he only clung to it. 

She wished he would understand and she wished his presence was easier to ignore. She turned in her bed, back on the ghostly feeling emanating from her door. No, not yet.

\---  
“Rey” the whisper quickly filled the silence around her. 

It had become more consistent, once a day she would be faced with a closed door and something scratching at it. It was becoming harder to ignore and harder to think of the soft voice as the determined supreme leader the resistance had sworn he turned into. She ignored his voice for what felt like the thousandth time, instead focusing on the jedi texts in front of her turning her chair just slightly away from the door. 

“Rey … please”

Her gaze betrayed her urgh to ignore it, and wide eyes peered at the door with wonder. Her heart stilled at the word, her stomach hurting with a nervous energy. He had never said more than her name. The please repeated in her mind, it was rough and begging. Barely audible but she heard it, she heard every letter in the damn word. 

She wondered if he felt her presence too, if he felt her determination to keep him at arms length. Or the sometimes overwhelming urge to screw everything else and open the door. She couldn’t rule with him but dammit if she didn’t want to see this man that she had somehow become closer than she ever imagined possible. Create something different than anyone expected from either of them.

Getting up slowly from her desk she made the first steps she had towards any door he was behind. A hesitant hand ghosting over the switch to open it before instead resting gently on the cool metal. 

She didn’t say anything just pushed her weight on the door, steadying herself against it.

“Rey? A-are you-?”

She jumped away at a warmth replacing the cool metal.

Tears burned her eyes before she blinked them away. She didn’t want to cry, not again. She knew the conflict was in him still, but she also knew she couldn’t just open the door. She couldn’t just let him back in until she was sure. 

“Not yet…” she let herself whisper, and in that moment she could feel him react to her words. Sadness laced with hope, she could nearly see the look on his face before she turned herself around and went back to concentrating on the texts. Every now and then looking back at the door and a glimmer of hope seeping into her heart.

\-- 

Rey starred at the door, eyes so intent that they stung from being dry. She hadn’t noticed him for days. She knew Hux overthrew him, the man sent out a transmission flaunting his new title and promising the galaxy a “solid, strong, and reliable leadership”. He had also placed a warrant on the head of Kylo Ren, for an obscene amount of wealth to anyone who presented him with the man dead or alive.

So for days she hoped the warrant hadn’t been cashed in, she opened every door to any noise. She reached out in the force everyday. She hoped his absence was by choice, that he chose to separate from the force and reflect. She no longer cared if those around her noticed her highly unusual obsession with doors. She let them chalk it up to whatever reason they thought made sense. 

She barely slept, she just stared at the door in the dark of her room, and wished more than anything she could know what happened to him. If he was ready to move forward. When she finally dozed off she had nightmares all having to do with finding him lifeless, or worse dying in her arms. 

Tonight sleep refused to take her, refused to even leave her with any semblance of rest. It had been two weeks and all she could do was hope he was still there. Wrapping a blanket around her she moved her way towards the door of her bedroom, resting down on the floor and leaning her side onto the entrance. She closed her eyes breathing in and let herself feel the buzz of the base. Centering herself in the present, the life that filled the place around her, the droids fixing things here and there, hushed whispers, loving looks, rooms filled with the joyful sound of laughter. 

That’s when she felt the force shift, jolting open her eyes, she felt him. 

“Ben!” she raised quickly from her spot on the floor, and paused just a moment before opening the door. 

Before her stood a much more disheveled looking man than she remembered. His heavy black attire replaced with lighter fabric in mixed matched shades of grey and black. His soft hair falling in his eyes her fingers twitching at the instinct to move it out of his eyes. His features were tired, but his eyes told a different story. The moment they met her they grew in size. Shock prominent in them, put more than that was a brightness that had been kept from them for so long. He sighed in relief stepping closer to her. Whispering her name gently.

This was the man she saw in the future that the force presented her, the eyes spoke to her like nothing else she had seen. She committed them to memory so quickly she felt like she had known them for years. 

“I didn’t think you would ever open the door”

“I hoped I would” she spoke before reaching her hand towards his. Fingers brushing lightly before intertwining fingers and letting the moment exist in the doorway that had haunted her for so long.


End file.
